Ulduar was okay, but it took a lot of fucking time, and it suffered severely from becoming totally redundant at some point between the release of TotC and ICC; after ICC was released, I don't think I came back to ulduar more than a tiny handful of times, while I remember doing TotC almost more than I did ICC. IT was so easy to pug, and simple and short enough that most half-competent pugs could clear it before the group fell apart. It was a great place to gear up, to prepare alts for ICC, and I had a lot of fun in that place.

By comparison, I barely even remember Ulduar these days (other than mimiron HC), and my most prominent memory of it was having to maintain a 100% attendance (in a 5d/week guild) to be there for all the legendary mace shards, which is a great way to burn out, and god forbid you fucking miss a raid after being selected for the mace if the guy you got it instead of could attend the raid you're missing. .. ended up not enjoying that place at all.

My enjoyment of TotC may be partly because of how much I liked ICC, since in my mind I see the two instances as connected, because I always did them both at the same time more-ior-less. It also had that awesome mana regen trinket off the demon-guy; the greatest trinket ever. Ulduar also begins with one of the 3 the most boring and retarded bossfights in wow history, in my opinion, along with an equally boring and retarded trash clear.

Ulduar was great... once you outgeared it to the point you could do normals in one night. I'm sorry, but ish was too long. They could have cut the entire first wing.

I also can't understand how anyone could possibly think Ulduar's hardmodes were the best... unless you played a Mage or Warlock, then maybe I could see it. Because as melee, or even a hunter, you were just a bitch for the casters, and actually totally unnecessary until Vezax, where you got to fall asleep waiting for your turn in the interrupt order. These were terribly designed, whoever programmed them is bad and should feel bad.

OMG 13:37 - Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Cleave unto me, and I shall grant to thee the blessing of eternal salvation."

ToGC was far from innovative in story or layout. Encounter design was okay at best. Concept was lacking.

Saying that ToGC had "okay" encounter design "at best" is kind of insulting. Every encounter in ToGC was fresh and many were innovative. Faction Champions, for instance, was one of the first (if not only) PvP-style encounters (the melee would train low health/armor players, they'd CC us, and we had to control the healers). Twin Valkyr took a nod from Ikaruga with the black and white balls and absorb effects. Killing Anub'arak on 25-heroic is still one of my favorite experiences in WoW -- that fight was just ... epic!

Sure, Northrend beasts was a bit lacking (not really, but I have to give a little, eh?) and Jaraxxus was a bit too easy, but both were solid fights, especially on heroic (and we are talking about ToGC here, so heroic is implied).

That said, Ulduar is still the superior instance. I liked some of the ToGC fights more than some of the Ulduar fights, but Ulduar had so many more fights, most of which were high quality, that it's hard to compare it to ToGC. I just really wish people would stop hating on ToGC. Yes, it was mostly a one-room instance with no trash (despite the fact that most people claim to hate trash), but it had good-to-great encounters and moderate-to-high difficulty while it was current. It also introduced tier tokens that any class could use and that could purchase pieces for any of the tier slots. Oh, and let's not forget the tribute system that rewarded additional loot for not wiping. ToGC got a lot of things right. I wouldn't rate it above Ulduar, but I would rate many of the bosses higher than a lot of the other bosses in that expansion (and others, of course).

edit: Take out XT, Council, Mimiron, Freya, and Yogg (and maybe Algalon, for the novelty of a heroic-only fight) and you've basically got a big raid with boring bosses. Those fights more or less made Ulduar and, without them, I'd probably be voting ToGC in this poll.

By no mean am I saying that everyone on here is a hardcore gamer but I think that the vast majority of casual wow gamers don't actually go into wow forums and those may be the ones who are more likely to vote TOGC>Ulduar.

Ulduar is usually voted "best instance evah" in a close race with Karazhan. ICC is up there too. Naxx deserves to be there if it wasn't for the "40 man vs the 10/25 man re-use".

Don't get me wrong, I ran ToC on 2 chars in normals and HMs every week, I liked the concept of no trash, just 5 bossfights - but there are just too many instances that have an overall more interesting layout and design.

Originally Posted by Blizzard Entertainment

... there are lots of different types of players, with different amounts of time to play, and different tastes for the content and difficulty and time commitment they want to give to any of those pieces of content. The person that plays for an hour or so a few times a week is playing the same game as the person that plays five hours every night.....

I stronlgy believe they made ToC simply to find out whether people actually want trash groups in a raid. Trash groups have always had some discussions to them and they still do: some groups are too repetive, some or too easy and therefore unnecessary, some are too hard considering there is no reward guaranteed, some random trashloot is imbalanced etc.
Since they were already testing things out with ToC they threw in the heroic option and the staggered release of bosses. Later on in ICC we saw several changes according to how players liked and dislikes the changes they made from Ulduar -> ToC.

Ulduar had amazing boss fights, incredible environments and a great layout. It felt epic because it was so large. A few boss fights in ToC were fun, but overall the raid is so cramped. It's like comparing a high quality steak to a low quality type of meat IMO. No offense, but how you and your friend were arguing over this is a little strange. If you guys were going to argue over two raids, why not go Ulduar vs Kara/ICC or something. At least that would be a bit more interesting. lol.

What's far more terrifying than this thread existing at all is that currently 24 people seem to think that TOGC was a better raid than Ulduar :O

Originally Posted by Lumineus

as melee, or even a hunter, you were just a bitch for the casters, and actually totally unnecessary until Vezax,

Melee were fine in Ulduar. Did you not see the race between Method and Ensidia? Not the world first race but the speed run race they did? method took a completely melee zerg group and ripped the place apart. They would have won easily were it not for a couple of stupid wipes which were down to player failure, not class issues.

What's far more terrifying than this thread existing at all is that currently 24 people seem to think that TOGC was a better raid than Ulduar :O

Melee were fine in Ulduar. Did you not see the race between Method and Ensidia? Not the world first race but the speed run race they did? method took a completely melee zerg group and ripped the place apart. They would have won easily were it not for a couple of stupid wipes which were down to player failure, not class issues.

Melee were very effective...

Explain to me how you could possibly get Cache is Rare or Firefighter with an all melee group, I'm all ears. No, having your Ferals and Enh Shamans dualspec over doesn't count. Actually... explain to me how you even kill normal Mimiron with an all melee group...?

As for player error, you can't deny that bringing a mostly ranged comp reduces the possibility of this dramatically. Full melee makes Freya about a thousand times harder, for example, because it's easy to get caught up on terrain inside the giant clusterfuck of mines that develops. I'm sure they had a lot of fun running like idiots on Vezax too, with the lifedrain victim in the middle of the group constantly moving to avoid the shadow lances... again respeccing your melee hybrids to ranged DPS doesn't count...

OMG 13:37 - Then Jesus said to His disciples, "Cleave unto me, and I shall grant to thee the blessing of eternal salvation."

Ulduar no doubt. ToC was really, really, really really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really "MEH". In the history of "MEH", nothing has been more "MEH" than ToC.
Untill Cata, then entire WoW became as "MEH" as ToC was. Imo.

“The north still reeks of undeath. Our homelands lay in ruin. Pandaria oozes our hatred and doubt. What hope is there for this world when the Burning Legion again lands upon our shores?” - Eric Thibeau